Division Zero (25 page)

Nicole leaned back over her chair, looking at Kirsten upside down. “How old do you think he is?”

“Bout thirty.”

Nicole bounced a goofy-eyed foam stress skull off Kirsten’s head. “No, dumbass, I mean as a ghost.”

“Oh, right. Well…he’s strong enough to take over a doll, not to mention I lashed him twice and he didn’t stop moving. He still ran like hell so he can’t be ancient. Maybe fifty or so if I had to guess.”

“Some can get powerful fast if they’re exceptionally angry,” added Dorian. “I got the feeling this guy was rather perturbed.”

Kirsten exhaled. “Yeah.”

“What?” Nicole looked at her upside down again.

“Nothing.”

The afternoon blurred into a sea of lonely faces. Less than an hour later, Nicole ran off to some mandatory training session or meeting. Kirsten had not paid enough attention to her prattle to remember which. Despite being only a year younger than Kirsten, she rambled on like a caffeinated tween.

“Back up.” Dorian got out of his chair, waving his finger at the screen. “Back three faces, is that him?”

Kirsten cycled back and blinked. “Dammit, you’re right. Good eyes.”

The apparition had a name―Albert Motte.

irsten basked in the blue glow of her terminal screen, poring over every detail she could find about Albert. The fact he had been dead for only six months shocked her; considering his strength, he had to be raging. Most spirits took that long just to be able to learn how to whisper to a living person or make a candle flutter. The files had little additional useful information. She now knew his grandparents had emigrated from ACC-controlled Germany and she found his addresses and banking records, as well as dates of birth and death. It lacked mention of an employer and, most surprising of all, the department file on his murder investigation looked empty.

“Think there’s an international angle? We might have to get Division 9 in on this.” Dorian leaned over her shoulder.

Kirsten sputtered a halfhearted tongue-less raspberry at the terminal. “I dunno. Would the Allied Corporate Council send a spy into the UCF to infiltrate Intera after a one-generation delay?”

Dorian made a pensive face. “I doubt it. Besides, Nine would have been all over them.”

Kirsten frowned at the file.
That can’t be right. They have this marked as murder, there has to be a record.

She locked her terminal and left the Division 0 wing. After a brief chat with Robin at the front desk, she went off toward the central hub. At the end of the hospital-white corridor, a pair of sliding transparent plastisteel doors moved out of her way, sensing her approach.

The nexus of the UCF Police command complex contained a swarm of semi-structured chaos as people went about their duties. She wanted to take this file to Division 9, knowing no place existed where they could not go in cyberspace. Every so often, as someone noticed her uniform, they would go out of their way to give her room. Sometimes the space came from a man being courteous to a cute blonde, but most times from people spooked away from a Zero.

The din faded as she got closer to that part of the building and by the time she walked over to a pair of men in black suits, the air hung silent as a tomb. They flanked a door marked with a simple black ‘9’. Both wore sunglasses, their faces traced with the lines of implanted neuralware. A faint glow lit their cheeks beneath their glasses as their cybereyes came to life and checked her out. She felt living minds, but stopped short of reading their surface thoughts. Division 9 got edgy about telepaths; rumor had it they had classified cyberware capable of harming anyone who tried.

She tried not to look like a lost schoolgirl. “I need to get a file checked. I think someone hacked into our system.”

The man on the left tilted his head. “ID?”

She held it out. “I just need help finding out why one of the files in the system is empty. Who better than you guys?”

“You know, Division 2 handles this sort of thing.” The other man pointed across the hub.

“Yeah, but I don’t have six weeks to wait for an answer. They never take us seriously when ghosts are involved.”

The two men looked at each other. She braced for the teasing, and put on her most pleading cute face. “Please?”

The brown-haired one caved in at her smile. “Hold on.”

He stood in silence; no doubt making a call with an implant. After several minutes, the doors opened and a tall woman with white hair walked out. Her hair, long in front and short in back, almost touched her chest. Gloss black ballistic stealth armor clung to her from neck down, leaving no curve to the imagination. A modest handgun sat under her arm on a brown leather strap.

A few inches taller than Kirsten, she emanated annoyance. “I’m Senior Operative Carter. I will be escorting you to Net Ops. Please don’t deviate from our path and try not to look at screens, doorways, or any unattended brains.”

She blinked, and saluted. As an Agent, she rated three steps below a D9 Senior Operative. Kirsten’s rank came as a special consideration for individuals from the dorm that went straight into I-Ops without having to serve on a tactical team, an impressive achievement usually afforded to trustworthy individuals with rare, powerful, or valuable abilities. Those who entered I-Ops after a tour or four on a tactical squad started at the next rank up, Detective Sergeant. She did not care about personal glory or prestige, but she showed respect to those above her.

“Understood, ma’am.”

Carter turned and walked with the fluid grace of a professional dancer. Kirsten could not help but feel like an awkward adolescent stumbling after her older sister as the other woman strode through the corridor as though calculating every sway of her body or sweep of her arm to be perfect.

She’s got neuralware, gotta have boosted agility.

They went past several rows of offices to another security door. It opened at a wave of Carter’s badge, and she led Kirsten down four small black metal stairs into a sunken room that looked like the command center for a military starship group. Massive screens dominated the far wall and rows upon rows of people sat at terminals. So much technology was crammed into the room that its presence changed the feeling of the air.

They passed what looked like a conference room, and a small coffee station. A thin plastic tube haphazardly ran from the brewing unit up along the ceiling. Halfway down another hallway, the area took on a look more appropriate for a corporate office than a police facility. Up ahead, the plastic vein descended into a cube from which a male voice whined about being bored, not having been shot at once in the past month.

“Hey, Dillon.” Carter kicked the cube wall. “Wake up.”

A middle finger rose up over the partition and waved back and forth.

Carter folded her arms. “He’ll help you… I think.”

“Whaaaaaaaat?” A skinny man dressed all in black slid into view on a wheeled chair. A cowboy hat sat atop his head, ringed with round silver discs that glimmered in the light.

A pair of wires descended from behind his ears through his long black hair, connecting him into the technology before him. He looked like he had not eaten in days, emerald green cans of synthetic energy drink scattered around the desk and floor.

At the sight of Kirsten, he made a cheesy grin. “Name’s Joey. What’cha need?”

“Agent Wren, Div 0. One of our records was hacked. I need to know what they deleted and who did it.”

He sent a belabored face at the ceiling. “Couldn’t you have given this to DeWinter? I was about to poke Guadalajara’s border routers in the ass with an electric turkey baster. I had it all lubed up.”

“How colorful.” Carter scowled. “Look, you know as well as I do how command feels about Division 0 poking around here… no offense.” She gave Kirsten a brief nod before continuing. “I need her squared away and out of here ASAP.”

He blinked at Kirsten. “Don’t tell me you believe in that ghost shit?”

She grinned innocently. “Kind of.”

Joey shook his head, laughing. “Well, at least you took her to the best.” He tucked up to the desk with a raised finger. “Fine… fine… this won’t take long.”

He made a series of exaggerated faces as he pulled the file up via mental command. Kirsten thought the wires twitched as the screens engulfing him shifted at a pace far too quick for biological eyes to keep up. A hologram of a smiling girl of about twelve smiled up from his desk. The thought of this man as a father made her lift an eyebrow.

Gotta be a kid sister, or cousin, or something…

After about thirty seconds, he took on a Zen-like countenance.

“This file was altered, my child. I sense an evil taint upon it.”

No shit, really?
“I kind of had that feeling.”

He grinned, dropping the monk act. “I restored it. All the data is there. It looks like the alteration came from a corporate network, uhm…” He moved his hands as if invoking black magic. “Intera.” His face contorted with overacted anger. “Filthy peasants! Think they can hide from me?”

Kirsten leaned back with both eyebrows raised.

Carter pursed her lips. “They got some set of balls hacking government files.”

Joey snickered. “I’ll send them a message about it, I have just the thing.” He looked at Kirsten, holding up two holo-disks. “What do you think? Windowgrinder 1.8 or Cornhole 4.0?”

“Umm… the first one.” Kirsten blushed.

“You need anything else?” He spoke to her breasts.

“Watch it Dillon, you’re flirting with death.” Carter slapped him on the head, knocking his hat askew.

Kirsten gave them both a look of confusion.
What! We’re not that unhinged, I’m not going to bake his brain for staring at my tits.

“Hey, just because I have perfection at home doesn’t mean I can’t admire cute.” He slid back into his desk, fixing his hat.

Kirsten felt left out of a joke, but whatever he said satisfied Carter. The look the tall woman gave her left no doubt it was time to leave now.

“Thanks for your help.” Kirsten waved in Joey’s direction.

“Philistines! Prepare to be boarded.” His voice echoed through the room, followed by maniacal laughter.

Carter walked backwards for three steps, shaking her head at him. A stream of air bubbles raced along the artery of coffee toward the desk.

“Don’t mind him.” Carter’s badge opened a door. “All of those cyberspace people are odd. I have no idea what Nina sees in him.”

“Hey, Carter, don’t forget Hardin wants you to go to sniper re-qual sometime within the next two days.” A male voice came at them from a passing doorway. “Preferably
before
you go to Cuba.”

“Yeah… yeah…” The ice in Carter’s voice made Kirsten shiver.

She kept her head down and offered a pleasant smile, feeling not unlike a mouse in the home of cats. Carter matched her quick stride with a grateful nod and left her at the exit.

Once she returned to her desk, she studied the holographic eyes of Albert Motte within the repaired file.

The fact he had worked for Intera Corporation before his death jumped out at her. Coupled with the truth of every doll targeted being made by them, it became too much of a coincidence to ignore.

Why would he go after his own dolls… maybe trying to finish some project? What if he’s trying to work on them and the dolls are not reacting well to a ghost?